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Delos Incorporated
Westworld. Delos Destinations, Inc. is the subsidiary that runs the Westworld operations. Company Delos Inc. is a corporation in the near-future Westworld universe, with a market cap seemingly in the hundreds of billions, using 2017 dollars. Delos appears to be a diversified conglomerate of which Delos Destinations is only a substantial part. By the end of Season 1, Delos and its subsidiaries have controlled Westworld more or less successfully for thirty years, saving it from financial trouble at least once with capital infusions. It is unclear whether Delos was the sole equity holder of Westworld from the beginning, or if Westworld was originally owned by founders Arnold Weber, Robert Ford, and unrelated initial investors only to be acquired over time by Delos. Delos Destinations, a subsidiary of Delos, operates Westworld (sometimes referred to in corporate communications as Park 1) and five other host-driven historical theme parks like it, such as the briefly seen Shogunworld (Park 2). All human employees at Westworld, including Robert Ford, are ultimately working for Delos, Inc. (Synthetic employees, on the other hand, would seem to be a mix of physical and intellectual Delos property). William is a major Delos shareholder and board member. It isn't known how long Delos has been active, but its investment in Westworld appears to span at least three decades. Logan's family may have founded Delos or at least once controlled it, though the details of Logan's career arc at Delos remains unclear. Delos Destinations, Inc. Delos Destinations, Inc. is the Delos subsidiary that oversees Westworld, including the hosts and the park. It is unclear whether the host IP is held by Delos Destinations, Delos Inc., or a third Delos entity. The corporation runs its theme parks from highly advanced control rooms and maintenance facilities , making sure everything is in accordance with a guest's needs. Their theme parks are populated with Synthetic (formerly Robotic) characters, all of which are programmed and bound to follow their set narratives in their current personalities, completely unaware that the world around them, including their own lives, is an elaborate fiction created by Delos Destinations. Thirty years prior to the events of the first season, Delos Destinations was largely failing, and losing revenue every year. It was feared by many that the increase in costs, and without the generated money to settle these costs, that the corporation would soon file for bankruptcy and be closed by Delos, including all of its attractions. Delos Destinations was fortunately saved by William, who had recently become vice CEO of the company. After spending time in Westworld, and with the latter warping his sense of reality, William decided to invest heavily in Westworld, ultimately saving the company from financial catastrophe. Park structure As of Season 2, Delos Destinations comprises six known host-driven parks which are designated as follows: *Park 1: Westworld *Park 2: Shogunworld *Park 3: Not identified *Park 4: Not identified *Park 5: Not identified *Park 6: Not identified In the first episode of Season 2, the territory upon which Westworld is situated was revealed to be a self-contained terraformed island whose location is not specified. The presence of Chinese naval officers in this episode (identified by the insignia on their caps and spoken language) implies the island was ostensibly purchased or leased from China, and we learn that Delos was granted full authority over the island — at least temporarily — following Season 1's host uprising. The storyline of Season 1 took place exclusively in Westworld. Prior to Season 2, the existence of Shogunworld was gradually revealed in trailers and interviews with showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. The existence of the other parks was divulged through the Delos Destinations website, on a slideshow gallery page with placeholder slides titled "Park 3" through "Park 6." The last four parks' narrative themes are presently unknown. In Season 2 Episode 1, Park 6 is mentioned in a scene in which a dead Bengal tiger has washed ashore, and Westworld security chief Ashley Stubbs remarks, "We've got Bengals in Park 6, but we've never had a stray cross park borders." This comment provides some information as to the structure of the parks: 1) The parks would appear to be geographically adjacent to one another, or inhabit a common geographical region, and 2) Bengal tigers are native to the Indian subcontinent (but are found across other parts of greater Asia) so a speculative general theme for Park 6 might be based on an Indian or possibly Southeast Asian narrative. Attractions operated by Delos Destinations, Inc. Westworld Westworld is Delos Destinations' primary vacation site, and its largest generator of revenue. For $40,000 a day, people can come and free themselves of any obligations or moral choices. Every year, the rich and elite will flock to a large fictional playground built to resemble the Old West in the late 19th Century, and populated with synthetic characters called "hosts" as well as synthetic animals of the Old West. These hosts are made to look like humans that would have appeared during that period of time. All Hosts are programmed to be unable to harm humans, and to follow a set narrative which plays out during the day but can be altered at any time by a human guest. Unless a guest's interaction has diverted their narrative, Hosts will reset every day with no memory of the previous day's events, and will carry on the same story over and over in a non-stop loop. To this end, Guests can choose exactly what they want to do in this world, as there are no real consequences. Guests can choose to either go White Hat (which symbolizes that they want to play the "good guy" and engage in the adventures that Westworld has to offer) or Black Hat (which symbolizes the Guest would like to play a "bad guy" and let themselves indulge in the many vices and evils of humanity, such as murder, rape, alcoholism and robbery). The only rule is that you cannot harm another human, as a Host's programming prevents you from doing any real harm to a person. Shōgunworld The existence of another park was teased during a brief scene in the final episode of Season 1, where hosts appear to be dressed as Japanese samurai warriors. Only the initials "SW" are seen on the wall of the Mesa Hub in that scene, and until recently the prevailing name of this park was speculated to be Samurai World. Showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have since disclosed that the official name of this park is "Shogunworld." It is now known through the show's website that a total of six parks make up Delos Resorts. Two of those parks, Westworld and Shogunworld, have been identified through the show and supporting promotional literature or interviews. Not much is known of this attraction prior to Season 2, although it is probably an immersive environment similar to Westworld. According to the Delos Desination website , Shogunworld is modeled after Japan's Edo Period (1603-1868), and promises "a landscape of highest beauty and darkest horror." The park has apparently been active in parallel to Westworld, but nobody mentions its existence until it is discovered by Maeve in Season 1's final Episode "The Bicameral Mind." Trailers for Season 2 provide glimpses of the Shogunworld environment, with Maeve walking within it dressed in a kimono. In an interview with SciFiNow magazine, Nolan said that it would simply be good business for Delos to create parks that appeal to international guests, since the Old West is a uniquely American experience. He also mused that Westworld "might not even be the most popular park." The Shogunworld experience seems to be targeted toward guests for whom Westworld's gunfights, saloon brawls and Cowboys-and-Indians motifs are too tame. Shogunworld will apparently offer a much darker, more violent experience than Westworld, catering to the "true connoisseur of gore" who wishes to "indulge their fantasies with the slash of a katana," according to the park's description. The parallels between the Old West and Feudal Japan have been explored before — Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai 1954 was the inspiration for John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven ''1960, for instance (and Yul Brynner's character in that film was the model for the Gunslinger robot in ''Westworld 1973) — and samurai sword fights and geisha maidens should provide plenty of opportunity for interactive narrative drama despite a thoroughly foreign environment with respect to place, time and culture. In the SciFiNow interview, Nolan admitted he and Lisa Joy chose a Samurai-themed park because he is "obsessed with Akira Kurosawa and specifically the interplay between Kurosawa's films and the westerns that were made in homage or a direct translation into the western genre." Other corporate activity Maritime activities Aside from operating the theme parks, Delos, Inc. is powerful enough to deploy its own maritime military or paramilitary force, as evidenced by the presence of a vessel resembling a stealth naval destroyer moored off of Westworld's coastline in the first episode of Season 2. This vessel displays the Delos logo on its side. Troops and equipment are shuttled onshore via smaller landing craft. While the troops have the uniforms and disciplined movements of conventional military personnel, the non-regulation hairstyles some of them sport could indicate the use of some mercenary talent, or merely a corporate waiver of grooming regulations in the interests of fulfilling mission objectives. In the field, the troops are apparently under the direction of Delos' civilian-clothed head of operations, Karl Strand. Data mining activities In Season 2 Episode 1, Bernard Lowe witnesses a drone host — a semi-autonomous, unimprinted host capable of functioning offline — downloading data from a deactivated park host's cranial memory module, and Bernard realizes that the datastream contains not only a complete record of a guest's experiences with the host, but also the guest's DNA. When he questions Charlotte Hale about the data intrusion, Hale dismissively replies, "We're not having that conversation, Bernard." This dialogue implies that Hale is aware of the violation of privacy the downloaded datastream represents, and that she does not share Bernard's apparent concern about it. The reasons that Delos would sanction such data and genetic mining without a guest's knowledge or consent are not made known. Regardless, such surreptitious mining is conceivably orders of magnitude more invasive than mining social media or tracking web activity, and the legal and ethical issues surrounding this activity are likewise more explosive. Role of Delos in Westworld (1973) The role of Delos in the original 1973 film is largely left unexplored, although we are offered a quick glance at corporate decision-making. In the film, Delos operates three different parks as opposed to six: the eponymous Westworld, with the other two being Roman World and Medieval World. One substantial difference between the Delos of the original movie and the HBO series is that the movie refers to Delos only as the parent resort for a system of three geographically-adjacent theme parks, but the actual corporate entity behind the resort is never explicitly named, so it is only assumed that Delos the resort is also Delos the company. The resort in the movie was named after the Greek island of Delos, which served as an important cultural, mythological and trade hub for the ancient Greeks — whereas the provenance of the Delos name in HBO's Westworld was revealed prior to Season 2 as being the eponymous corporation of founder James Delos . All that is known of the corporate entity Delos in the original movie is that it seems to be run exclusively by engineers, scientists and technicians. A central command-and-control facility operates and maintains all the park worlds and their robotic inhabitants, in a similar manner to its television counterpart. The film begins with a commercial for Delos, which shows numerous guests being interviewed about their trips to the parks, and enthusiastically agreeing how it's worth $1,000 a day (about $5,500 in 2017 dollars). The commercial ends as the interviewer turns to the camera and proclaims, "Boy, do we have a vacation for you!" Guests arrive at a central terminal at Delos via the resort's exclusive jet hovercraft. Upon arrival, guests are guided to the color-coded park world that they have chosen. Roman World allows a release of stress through relaxing days of doing nothing, and is built to cater to those who want to simply kick back and enjoy themselves in any method (including sexual). Medieval World and Westworld meanwhile are built to serve those who wish for a more thrilling experience, opting for gunfights and swordplay over lavish relaxation. As the plot develops, a mysterious pattern of malfunctions begins to affect various robots throughout the park system. At first, the malfunctions are minor, such as robots losing their balance or exhibiting other mildly unstable behaviors. The malfunctions become more serious when a rattlesnake robot bites a guest in Westworld, and a sex robot refuses a guest's advances in Medieval World — actions contrary to the robots' programming. We're given a peek into corporate governance at Delos in a scene where six men wearing white lab coats are seated around a conference table discussing the malfunctions. The men speak in the patois of scientists or engineers as opposed to corporate executives, but it's clear they have the authority to make decisions affecting operations for the entire resort. "The directors," as they are referred to in a later scene, have decided not to close the parks while they investigate the robot malfunctions, so as not to alarm the guests. However, things at Delos take a sinister turn when the robots begin systematically slaughtering people. Everyone in Roman world is massacred, and the sole guest in Medieval World is murdered by a Robot dressed as a Black Knight. The control room staff manage to shut down most of the Robots, but are then trapped inside the facility themselves. In Westworld, a lone Robot, The Gunslinger, goes on a brutal rampage, killing one guest and a Delos maintenance worker before relentlessly pursuing the sole surviving human. He makes it to Roman World and into the Delos underground HQ, where he sees that the security system has locked everyone in the control room and that they have all suffocated in the air-tight environment. He eventually defeats the malfunctioning Gunslinger by luring him into a trap and setting him on fire, where he breaks down and deactivates. The guest sits down in exhaustion as the film ends and the slogan of Delos: "Boy, do we have a vacation for you..." echoes over the final shot. Some fans have speculated that the final episode of the Westworld (TV Series) is where the story connects with the 1973 film. The scenes, in the TV show, where the staff are locked inside the control center when the power fails are reminiscent of the similar situation in the 1973 film, where the staff all suffocate inside the air-tight control room. Also, near immediately after, in the TV show, the Hosts appear and begin slaughtering the guests, a scene which is also reminiscent of the third half of the 1973 movie when the Robots malfunction and start murdering people. Role of Delos in Futureworld (1976) The 1973 Westworld movie was followed in 1976 by a sequel, Futureworld, which departed from the original with a weak story line and bargain-basement production values, and was poorly-received by audiences. Michael Crichton, the creative mind behind the original Westworld story, was not involved in the sequel. Whereas Westworld ''was produced by MGM, ''Futureworld ''was produced by American International Pictures, a studio known for its low-budget B-movies. The events of ''Futureworld ''take place two years after the robot rebellion in Westworld. In the sequel, Delos is given a corporate face for the first time in the polished and dapper spokesperson known only as “Duffy,” played by Arthur Hill. Duffy explains to a group of journalists that following the robot uprising, Delos has invested $1.5 billion (about $6.5 billion in 2017 dollars) to rebuild its facilities and replace “every circuit, every program and every robot” at the resort, but that attendance at Delos is lagging behind expectations. He offers journalists — played by Blythe Danner and Peter Fonda — exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to the park in an effort to boost PR. The configuration of parks in the new Delos has changed. Westworld, while it still exists, has too negative a connotation in the public’s mind to be reopened. Medievalworld and Romanworld from the original Delos are still open, and two new parks have been added: Spaworld (where a drug-assisted form of augmented reality allows guests to interact with hosts, unaffected by their real-world frailties and infirmities), and Futureworld (a simulated journey into space). In the underground infrastructure of this new Delos we are first introduced to the samurai characters that are now being glimpsed in the HBO series. A "host generation chamber" forms a few samurai hosts that appear ready to run their swords through the journalists who have wandered upon it, until a park technician deactivates them in the nick of time. The thin plot of ''Futureworld ''involves the journalists uncovering evidence of a corporate scheme by Delos to replace human influencers (political leaders, media stars, religious leaders) with host duplicates in order to gain control of human governments and society. The design of the hosts has become much more advanced since Westworld closed, as they are now indistinguishable from the humans they are replacing. Duffy says that “even those of us who create them can’t tell you apart.” (Contrast this to the original ''Westworld, where the hosts suffered from a minor flaw in their hands that gave them away.) Duffy himself is revealed to be a host, and he explains to the journalists (as a prelude to killing them) that the new generation of hosts believes that humans will destroy the planet before the end of the decade, owing to their violent and irrational nature. Duffy pointedly observes, “We do not intend to be destroyed by your ''mistakes.” Hence, carefully-targeted humans will be replaced by hosts who are programmed to “think first of the welfare of Delos,” and, one is led to assume, the safe management of the planet. This otherwise forgettable film is notable only for the fact that this stretch of exposition — not the robot uprising of ''Westworld ''— is where the notion of host autonomy and self-determination is first mentioned in the Westworld universe with any specificity. The uprising in the original Westworld was not attributed to hosts gaining any higher-level consciousness or desire for self-determination; instead, their defiance and murderous rampage was ascribed to a malfunction — the very first mention of a computer “virus” — that caused them to behave contrary to their programming. So despite its low-budget scripting and production values, ''Futureworld ''arguably provides a more direct conceptual bridge to the HBO series' notion of host self-determination (and the hosts' desire to have dominion over their environment) than does the virus-triggered rebellion in the original movie, and is noted here for that reason. ''[Note: Dialog in this section was quoted from the novelization of the film ''Futureworld, published by Ballantine Books, 1976.]'' Notable Staff (In Westworld) Current Board Members * William, Man in Black - majority share holder of Westworld; board member (Delos Destinations, Inc.) * Charlotte Hale - Executive Director of the board of directors (Delos Destinations, Inc.) Department Heads * Bernard Lowe - Head of Behavior & Diagnostics Division * Lee Sizemore - Head of Narrative & Design Division * Karl Strand - Head of Operations Security * Ashley Stubbs - Security Chief in Quality Assurance Division * Maling - Military Contractor Technicians * Elsie Hughes - Behavior Technician (programmer/coder) * Felix Lutz - Body Shop Technician in Livestock Management * Sylvester - Body Shop Technician in Livestock Management * Antoine Costa - Field Technician Former Board Members *Blaine Bellamy - Deceased *Ronald - Deceased Directors/Creators * Dr. Robert Ford - Park Director, Co-creator of Westworld - presumed Deceased * Arnold Weber - Co-creator of Westworld - Deceased Department Heads * Theresa Cullen - Head of Quality Assurance Division - Deceased Technicians * Destin - Body Shop Technician in Livestock Management - Deceased Greeters * Angela - A greeter for newly arrived guests to Westworld - Recycled (presently an in-park host) Map of Westworld Mesa Hub Delos-map.jpg|Map of Westworld Mesa Hub See Also * Emails - some archived company emails from a security panel on the Delos Incorporated website http://Delosincorporated.com. * Westworld Mesa Hub - headquarters * Discover Westworld - promotional website (for guests) * Delos Incorporated - company website (for investors) * Delos Destinations Corporate Intranet - company website (for employees) References de:Delos Incorporated fr:Delos Incorporated Category:Organization Category:Locations